


Just our way

by Hopeful_Foolx



Series: Whumptober 2019 [17]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Fluff, GUYS, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, This is kinda a rollercoaster, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, What Have I Done, Whump, Whumptober 2019, YES I AM FINISHING IT WHATEVER IT TAKES, in the second, numb, others are mentioned - Freeform, so soft, this is hurt in the first part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22590205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeful_Foolx/pseuds/Hopeful_Foolx
Summary: After everything, it's kind of fitting that he dies here. Alone. Because he has lost everything by now.-Or, the one where Chester King is worse, Percy reflects on a lot of things, and James... Well...
Relationships: James | Lancelot/Percival (Kingsman)
Series: Whumptober 2019 [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1508756
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Just our way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SayarinConagher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SayarinConagher/gifts).



> Sooo... I'm going to just post them all over the place, or maybe sort them when I finish this whumptober. I have half the prompts sitting in my WIP, and I will post them. Eventually :D Until then, enjoy the mess I made of this. 
> 
> Also, I am... not sure what the hell I wrote here but it kinda hurt and so... 
> 
> If you want to know, the song I listened to while writing was "The way we say goodbye" by Circa Waves

The pain is far away by now. It was there, and he knows, it will be here again.

Right now, he couldn’t be less bothered. He knows they will eventually break him, and if not, he is already dead. Maybe he is in the process of dying right now, because everything is gone. The pain is gone, and not the just the physical pain. The pain deep in him, the deep ache in his chest, this steady broken beat, a last memory of the person who belonged there, is gone. His surroundings haven’t changed, they are still the same bare walls and the same bare floor. Cold concrete, cold as he is by now. 

His eyes are open but that doesn’t mean he sees. There is nothing the blood on the floor could be a mirror for, and his hand, long cold, is red if he moves it or not. It’s directly in his line of sight if he could bother to see.

He doesn’t. 

The pain is gone. There is no sharp stinging sensation from when he got his ankle broken. There are no pins and needles on his chest from where his shirt is cut open. No feeling in his shoulder where his captor put a knife and pulled it out. 

It doesn’t hurt to think about his captor anymore. There is a distant memory of regret. And disappointment. And fear, when he hopes that Roxy, Merlin and the boy made it out, because _he_ wanted their location. It is the only thing left in him, left of him, too, this knowledge. But it had shrunk down to a mere fact. The mere fact that they are alive, hopefully, and far away. He hopes they are far away. He hopes Merlin has taken his Rox far away from here, far away from Kingsman. From what became of it, at least.

He knows they won't be coming back for him, and he knows Roxanne will scream and shout and beg but it is too dangerous, and in the end, she will see reason. Merlin would make her. It was the only way he could protect her, and not because he is bad at it, but because she is so good. 

He can’t be bothered to look around when the shouting starts. They are always shouting, and he doesn’t listen. 

The moment he heard Bedivere scream was the same he realized, far too late, how wrong he had been. There are at least four other agents down here, but he only knows that by different voices in screams. He gave up on enduring the torture silent long ago. 

_Time is out of joint_ doesn’t mean anything anymore, except that there is no time down here. He once thought their base of operations a beautiful place. 

Not it’s cold. And bare. Just like he is. 

There is nothing they could take from him anymore, the only thing keeping his heart beating is the knowledge that Roxy made it out and it is the only cut through the fog. 

They took James away in Argentina mere months ago. They took his heart away and they took his colours away because without James, the world could be monochrome and he wouldn’t notice. 

They took away everything he stood for, or no, maybe not they, because Chester did. One man. One man he trusted, and really, he never should have. 

But he did. He did and he ignored what the others said because it was Chester. Why would they say these things about him? He was good at reading people, and they took that from him too, because he should have seen it. He should have seen it coming. 

If he had, maybe James would still be alive. 

He is right where he should be. He deserves this, he deserves getting everything taken from him. He deserves it. 

It doesn’t hurt anymore. The kicks and the threats. It hurt when they cut open his hand to show him that they could, without bothering, take every finger. Take every limb. And he may even have screamed, but as soon as they left him to soak his black hair in his own blood, it stopped. There was no pain, there was just

nothing. 

Nothing here. And him? He was gone too. He had been gone for months, for months since the dreadful day James died. 

Even that line doesn’t hurt anymore. Neither does his chest. 

He should be disgusted by all the blood on the floor, but he isn’t. It’s his. Maybe it’s better off outside his body. 

The thought of dying is nothing to him. He doesn’t care if he dies. Maybe it’s the best. He is not a religious person, he doesn’t believe in a life after death, and still it’s a tiny piece of hope, maybe seeing James again.

For a fraction, the pain in his broken heart cuts through and he feels his eyes sting, and maybe it’s not just all blood on his face for a moment. 

But it stops. 

There is nothing there anymore. He tried and he failed and he lost it. He lost James, and then Roxanne, and it’s okay. 

In a crooked and weird way, it’s okay. It’s how it is supposed to be. Maybe he was supposed to end as broken as he began when he met James. 

His eyes don’t look anywhere, he is blind, not by injury but by choice. Nothing hurts. 

The blood on his cold hand dries, and puddle under him soaks into the remains of his shirt. It’s cold. It’s supposed to be cold. 

He is supposed to feel nothing, and normally, that would be funny, to think that all everyone always seemed to want him to be was an emotionless machine. 

And now he is merely more than a broken doll on the floor. 

It’s the grotesque humor that normally isn’t his, but it’s comforting. The soft nothingness he melts into. 

This must be the way people experience death in books, he thinks. It is how it’s written. Peaceful, even. A peaceful death. Bloody, with gaping open holes and broken bones. With nothing left but a secret and a memory in his heart. It’s fitting that it broke into two parts then. A memory of a dead love, gone for months now. And a secret. 

The noise outside gets louder, and he knows why they are here. He’d prefer to die here and now, peaceful and calm, but they will make a bigger mess out of it than it already is. If they’ll even bury him, maybe they can do it next to Harry. But he is not sure if they even retrieved him. But at least, he won’t be alone when he dies. It’s a good thought. 

If he could care, he would die standing, but he doesn’t. Not in the slightest. There is nobody to show respect to anymore, and maybe dying before they get here, before Chester can grin at him again, maybe staying down is the one, tiny act of rebellion he can spit out with his dying breath. Maybe staying down is, what he should have done from the start. 

The door opens and in the same moment, he closes his eyes.He doesn’t want Chester to be the last face he sees. He doesn’t even care if it’s darkness coming before the eternal darkness. He doesn’t want to see the man who killed Harry. And James. 

“I found him! He’s here!”

He doesn’t react. The voice sounds an awful lot like Merlin and whatever hallucination it is that is tormenting him now, it doesn’t matter. He is dying, and it’s how it should be. He dies alone. He dies a good death. Alone.

“Come on, Percy, don’t let me down-” The heat of skin on his face and then his neck is in interesting change, but not good enough to open his eyes. The hands before hurt him in the end too, as will this one. 

“Good Lord, what…” 

“Mer-” It’s only a part of a word James gets out, and Martin can’t control that he is smiling. Because his last thought should be James, and hearing his voice would be nice. 

“No, nonono, come on-” There is a sound like walking through a puddle and the hand on his face is replaced. 

“You’re still in there, I didn’t… I didn’t…” His face is not smooth, it’s caked in blood, and so the fingers on his cheek get stuck and it feels clumsy, and it feels like James. He knows he won’t be able to say it. Why would he, he is alone, dying alone in a cold room after losing the game called _life_. But he appreciates the tricks his mind plays on him. And he doesn’t want it to end. 

“You can hear me, I know… We’re here, Merlin and Roxy and Eggsy and Harry and I, we’re here. We’re here, we’ll get you out of here. To Mags, she’s with us. We’ll get you fixed up in no time, you hear me?”

The tear that lands on his nose is hot on his skin and he dreads that he can hear the desperation in his partners voice. And still, he stays, he will stay as long as this hallucination goes on. And so he just listens. To meaningless words, meaningless promises. Meaningless touch. 

There is no last thought before he dies. 

He doesn’t expect to wake up. Or maybe he did, once, as a child, as he believed in heaven and hell and how he would one day wake up there. It’s not the same when he wakes up. It’s not a cold hard floor of concrete, and it’s not a cloud in the sky, even though that is closer to the truth. 

It’s a bed, in a room. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, and he turns his head to see mostly pillow, and a bit of hair on one side. He’s covered in a thick blanket, and moving more than he just has sounds like the most ridiculous idea he’s ever had. But there is pillow everywhere he can see and that’s … weirdly comforting. There is the taste of copper in his mouth, and fog in his head, and maybe, while it is not the best idea to move, it may be impossible to find out where he is without doing so. He learned as much as an agent. Right now, all he can see is pillow and blanket - and bed, because even without his glasses, looking up he sees no ceiling. The whole world is just pillow and blanket and bed right now.

He tries to lift his hand, but finds one unmovable, and one.. stinging. It’s the familiar sensation of an IV, and for a moment, the puzzle pieces seem to fall together as they should, but then, the moment is gone. Instead there is the sound of shuffling next to him, and the bit of hair that was visible in the mountain of, seemingly, one large pillow, moves. To show a head, and a neck, and the rest of a disheveled, tired looking James, who is slowly blinking his eyes open and rubbing at them with one hand, the other, as he realized just now, wrapped around his own. 

“Percy…?”

  
  


And this is the moment he knows he died, because this man, right next to him, could not be alive. May things were possible, but some just were not, and this was one of them. James is dead. James died, months ago, and never, there was no way he could ever forget that, could ever forget the pain it left him in. 

Because James died, and now, he is dead too. 

Only, that James doesn’t seem bothered by that in the slightest. He leans forward, and there are tears in his eyes and yes, that matches the situation, James would be sad if he died, but...

“Hey… Hey, how are you feeling?” He wiped the tears away and comes closer. “I’m… I have so much to explain, god, it took…. it took far too long, and you are probably so angry with me, I know, I know that, and I’m… I am so sorry. When Merlin and Rox and the kid found my hiding place and told me what happened, that there was no way my message could have gone through, there was… Not enough time to just turn around and get you.” His hand, away from his eyes now, flies to his hair, as if he not sure of he is allowed to touch his partner. 

And Percy just stares at him. 

“You died.” It’s nearly inaudible, and he is not sure if the stained and broken voice is even his own. “We’re dead.” It’s a slightly more stable statement, and still more of a fact because yes, they are definitely dead. 

“What…” James looks him over, and he looks back. He can’t even think, he should be happy, but words fail him. The more seconds pass and the more he looks at that face he missed so much it hurts him even now, the more he wants to say, let the words out, let himself talk, shout even, but he can’t. 

James shakes his head and smiles and he missed that smile, he missed that smile so much he can’t even find words big enough for the feeling.

“You’re not dead. We’re not dead, we’re in scotland.” There is the most awkward pause after that and Percy just looks, just looks at James, trying to see if he is joking. 

“Apparently, someone who used to be related to Harry has a house here. He gave it to Merlin to make a safehouse of it, one… not within reach of Kingsman. We needed a place to lay low for a while, and… here we are.” Percy needs a moment to process that and maybe James takes his silence the wrong way, because he just looks down and doesn’t say a word., and Percy...

It takes him too long to realize, and when he does, he closes his eyes because they _burn_ , and he swallows and the lump in his throat is suffocating him. His shoulder _hurts_ and his ribs _ache,_ his face _stings_ and all the sensations, all the feeling in his body comes back and he can’t, he can’t control what is happening, when emotion and the general sensation of _feeling_ overwhelms him. 

Time is still not back to normal, and when he is finally able to take a breath without straight up sobbing again, he is on his side, half laying on James, who is holding him with both arms in the most awkward position to ever hold a person. 

“I lost… all of you. I thought you were dead.” He whispers into James’ shoulder and the hand in his hair stops for a moment before it continues. 

“I thought you were dead when we went into that basement. Merlin called for me, and there was just… so much blood. I thought I lost you.”

“Can we agree on-” his voice gives out in the middle of the sentence, and the huff of laughter he receives as an answer is enough. 

“Yes. We’re not doing this again.”

“We have… a lot to talk about.” Percy mumbles, eyes already closed again. One of his hands is covered in bandages, and so he can’t grip the fabric of James’ shirt as tight as he wants, but there is no way James could move out from under him without… breaking a bone, most likely. 

“And we will have a lot of time for that. Neither of us are going to run around anytime soon, especially you.” There is a pain in the last words. 

“This bad?”

“Bad enough. Morgana put enough blood into you to feed a vampire for a month, and you still look pale as death. It’ll take some time.”

It should bother him, and he knows, it will. Later. When he will actually have to think about moving, when he has to do anything more than just lay here and do nothing. Later, it will bother him, and later, he knows already, he will see Harry and Merlin and Roxanne and probably be even more of a mess than he is now. But right now, right now and right here, he is far away from everything else. He can sleep. He can do nothing but lay here, with James, with his James. With his James, who is alive. 

And they still have to talk through all the gaps in his memory. They will.  
Later. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :)  
> If there are still typos, I'm sorry, I checked but I will again, when I am more awake than just right now.


End file.
